


The Haunting of South Downs Cottage

by minervamoon



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Haunting, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, POV Outsider, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27225439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minervamoon/pseuds/minervamoon
Summary: Thanks again tochewbfor beta'ing this for me.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76
Collections: Trickety-Boo! Exchange





	The Haunting of South Downs Cottage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Z A Dusk (snakeandmoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon/gifts).



This was not how it went. There had been no warning. No people poking about where they didn’t belong, no boxes being delivered, nothing. None of the usual signs he was used to. Then suddenly his home was being invaded. 

He could hear them outside on the walk. One of them was gushing about the garden. The door was unlocked and pushed open with a flourish.

“After you, Angel,” said a man in dark clothes and equally dark sunglasses, a wide grin on his face as he gave an ushering bow.

“Oh!” exclaimed the second man, as opposite to the first as one could be. Light to the other’s dark, round not lean, bubbly instead of quiet and calm. He was practically beaming as he stepped across the threshold. “It’s exactly like the one I had back in… when was it?”

“Don’t remember,” said the other man. “You were chummy with that Irish bloke then, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes! Dickie. Sweet lad.” The one called Angel turned in place. “It’s absolutely perfect, Crowley. Such a wonderful surprise.”

_Yes, the house is perfect,_ thought the one watching. _And it’s mine!_

Angel stood a little straighter. “Did you feel that just now?” He started to turn slowly. The watcher had enough time to move to the second floor. He could still hear them, milling about down there. He could hear them wherever he was in _his_ house.

“Feel what?”

“I suppose it was nothing. Residual energy from the previous owner perhaps.”

Wonderful. A psychic. The watcher sighed. Psychics were trouble. They were harder to get rid of. They always wanted to try and help. Said he had “unfinished business.” He wouldn’t _have_ unfinished business if people didn’t keep coming and trying to take his house away from him. 

“There was some rot online about the place being haunted,” chuckled Crowley.

“You and I both know that’s not rot,” chided Angel. “This house could very well be haunted.”

Crowley sighed. “Well if it is, we’ll tell it to shove off where it belongs. I’m going to get the bags out of the car. You want to help me, or do you want to go ghost hunting?”

He listened to them leaving the house and began to pace the upstairs bedroom. He needed a plan. A psychic and a cynic. Neither one good in terms of scaring off, and they had prior experience with hauntings by the sound of it. Nothing he couldn’t handle; he had practice at this sort of thing.

* * *

Night had fallen. He couldn’t remember what had transpired between then and now, but the house was different. He seethed at that. They’d brought furniture in, a lot of it, right under his nose. How had he missed that?

Crowley had gone off and gotten them takeaway, some foreign food he didn’t recognize. They spent the next few hours reminiscing about when they'd traveled and gotten the food from the source. They were very well-traveled from what he could gather. Good. With any luck, they’d decide his house wasn’t worth it and go somewhere else.

The pair talked and laughed late into the night. There was something familiar in the way they talked, the way they joked. The easy ebb and flow between them, the soft smiles and gentle looks. Then Crowley headed off for bed while Angel settled downstairs with cocoa and a book. 

He shook himself from the lull he’d fallen into. It was time to get started. 

One had to start slow with this sort of thing. It was better to build the paranoia, plus it gave him more time to feel them out, get a sense of what it would take to get rid of them. He’d already tipped his hand earlier; made his presence felt before he was ready, but at least he knew Angel believed in ghosts. That helped.

He started by dropping the temperature in the living room. First a bit of a draft, then a definite chill. There was the beginning of a frost on the windows before it got a response out of Angel. 

Angel shivered, finally noticing the cold air, and, with a flick of his wrist, a cheery blaze sprang to life in the hearth.

The watcher took an involuntary step back. Not just a psychic but a witch? Had he dealt with a witch before? He couldn’t remember. It was so hard to remember some days. He left to take a crack at the other one. He’d have to work fast and hard if they had magic. No one had been able to force him out yet, but they hadn’t had real magic to use against him. Had they?

He went up the stairs to the bedroom, plotting what to do. Bang the windows open? No, not nearly enough. Shake the bed? Possible. Oh! He could put him on the…

Crowley was not on the bed, or in the armchair by the window, or even on the floor. He was on the ceiling. The watcher stared in slack-jawed shock at the man who snored in soft hisses, pressed flat against the ceiling.

_What in the name of God’s Green Earth is going on here?!_

Crowley sat bolt upright (downright?) and his eyes flashed an unholy yellow as he peered disorientedly around the dark room. Then those eyes locked on him and the glare that followed chilled the watcher to his core. 

“You,” Crowley hissed, long fangs in his mouth, and he began to move in ways no human body should be able to. His spine stretched and twisted, folding him in half with his head pointed towards the door and his chest to the ceiling. One thin arm shot forward, fingernails scratching into the painted wood, then the other. Those yellow, slitted eyes never left him as the thing on the ceiling pulled itself forward. His hips rolled to follow the rest of him, snapping around in a shifting motion of sharp angles under the loose pants he’d been sleeping in.

The watcher couldn’t move, trapped by the ghoulish eyes glaring down at him as the creature came closer and closer until Crowley was just above him, head twisted around and back at a painful angle, mouth open, and fangs glistening in the dim light from the hallway. One hand reached down for his face, fingernails like black claws.

“Crowley, stop it,” snapped a voice behind the watcher. “Can’t you see you’re frightening the poor thing?”

“Serves him right, trying to haunt us,” snarled Crowley. He did retract his hand though, and continued past them, slither-crawling across the ceiling and then down the wall, twisting and bending over himself to put his feet on the floor. Then he stood upright, looking perfectly human save for those eyes.

“No need to show off, I know how terrifying you can be,” said Angel with warm affection. He pressed a palm to Crowley’s cheek. “I’ll see to our houseguest. You’re welcome to go back to sleep.”

Crowley rubbed his cheek against Angel’s palm, those eerie eyes bright and adoring as they gazed at Angel. “Nah, ‘m awake now.” 

Angel gave him a soft, private smile then turned to the watcher. “How about we continue this downstairs?”

_C-continue what?_ asked the watcher, terror still holding him in place. What were these things?

“You’re obviously trying to scare us off.”

Crowley gave a derisive snort. “That’s bloody likely. Just send him on his way, Angel, or I’ll do it.”

Angel gave Crowley a chiding frown. “It’s better for him if he’s ready to move on instead of being forced.”

That snapped the watcher back into action. _Now hold it right there! This is **my_ * home and I’m not going anywhere!* He tried to leave the room, but Crowley snapped his fingers. Some invisible force wrapped around him, binding him in place.

“None of that,” said Crowley as the watcher struggled against the bonds. “You either do it his way or my way. You don’t have any other options.”

_This is my home!_

The house shook from the impact of his wail. He put all his energy into it. They couldn’t make him leave. He had to stay. He had to watch over this house. He had to!

“Crowley, go downstairs. You’re just making it worse,” sighed Angel.

“Whu? Me? But he’s-”

“He’s obviously in pain. Seriously, dear boy. You’d think this was your first haunting.”

Crowley stomped out of the room muttering, “...usually the one doing the haunting.”

“You must excuse him. This was very important to him. When we decided to move to the country, he wanted to plan it all and surprise me, you see. It was-”

“Why is it so bloody cold down here?” shouted Crowley up the stairs. Angel snapped and the thick blanket on the bed vanished. “Thank you.”

“It was really all very sweet.” Angel smiled the smile of the utterly besotted. It was...familiar. It all felt eerily familiar. But why? “Let’s start over, shall we? My name’s Aziraphale, retired Principality and Guardian of the Eastern Gate. You?”

A name? He’d never had a name. Had he? No. That couldn’t be right. He’d been human once, and humans had names. And he-he-

_I can’t remember,_ he said, feeling lost suddenly.

The man gave him a look of worry and sympathy. “Oh my. You have been trapped here a long time if you’ve forgotten your name. Do you remember anything of your time being alive?”

_I-I promised. I promised I’d- My house._

“Your purpose for not passing on was looking after this house, wasn’t it?”

_I promised._

“Do you remember who you promised that to?”

Of course he remembered. Except, when he tried to think, he couldn’t. Not entirely. He remembered wisps. The smell of sunlight and flowers, a laugh like a choir of angels. And pain, so much pain.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Angel-Aziraphale embraced him. He froze even inside the bindings. No one had been able to touch him before.

“There there. It’s all right. I think I have an idea.” Aziraphale pulled away and looked straight at him. “Now, I’m going to undo the bindings on you, but only if you promise to come downstairs with me and not flit off or try to scare us away anymore. It won’t work anyhow, and Crowley can and will force you out if he chooses to, I’m afraid. It’s really in your best interest if we can figure out which way you should go. You don’t want to get stuck in the detention office of Afterlife Immigration.”

_What are you two?_ he asked.

Aziraphale smiled gently at him and began to glow softly. “We can help you if you’ll let us.”

_This is my home,_ repeated the watcher, clinging to that one truth as the rest of his world was rocked to its core.

“It was, then you died. You have a new home waiting for you, and your family, I daresay. We’ll get you sorted and on your way in no time.”

He nodded dumbly. What other choice did he have against an angel? They were going to send him off. He wasn’t going to be able to keep his promise.

_My home. I promised._

The binds let him go. Aziraphale wrapped one arm around his shoulders and the other took his hands. “I know. I know. Whoever you promised that to must’ve been very important.” He edged them out of the room. “Do you remember anything about them?”

_Flowers._

“Were they the gardener?” Aziraphale asked, smiling encouragingly. 

The watcher latched onto that. _The garden, yes._

Aziraphale squeezed his hands. “There we are. That wasn’t so hard. Crowley likes to garden. He’d say he just likes bossing the plants around, but I know he really enjoys it.”

Crowley was curled up in the blanket, only his face and hands visible, and sitting as close to the fireplace as the couch would let him even though the room was much warmer than when the watcher had left it. Crowley waved a rectangle at Aziraphale. “Found him.”

“Already?”

“Not that hard, when you’re me.” Crowley gave him a cheeky smile then held out the mug of cocoa. “Warmed this up for you.”

“Thank you, dear. So, who was he?” asked Aziraphale, letting him go to take the mug.

“Benjamin Terry. Died nineteen-oh-two. Wife, Abigail, died two years-”

_Abby!_ cried the watcher. _My Abby! I-I forgot Abby. How could I forget her?_ He looked to Aziraphale. _I loved her so much. You have to believe me. I didn’t mean to-_

“I know. I know, and she knows. And she’s waiting for you. Do you want to go to her now?”

Go? He could go? To Abby? _You’ll take care of the house, won’t you?_

“I promise. And Crowley will look after the garden. Won’t you, Crowley?”

Crowley shrugged. “Might as well. Got nothing better to do.”

“That’s Crowley for ‘he’d be honored to.’”

Benjamin gave the angel a resolute nod. _I’m ready. I want to see my Abby._

* * *

“Finally,” cried Crowley in an exhalation of breath. “I really was about to shove him out and let A.I. sort him out.”

“Of course you were, dear,” said Aziraphale. He sat on the couch and scooted up beside Crowley.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Angel. I would’ve done it.”

“Mmm. Room for me?”

That stopped Crowley dead, just as Aziraphale knew it would. Crowley snatched Aziraphale’s mug away, putting it on the end table, and opened the blanket for the angel to join him.

Aziraphale leaned in and nuzzled his cheek against Crowley’s bare chest. “You really were quite frightening upstairs.” He gave a pleased sigh when Crowley wrapped his arms and blanket around him, then looked up at Crowley coyly. “I had no idea you could bend like that.” 

“Oh Liked that, did you?” chuckled Crowley, a sly grin spreading across his face. “Care for a repeat performance?”

Aziraphale pushed up Crowley’s body until their lips were a breath apart. “Temptation accomplished.”


End file.
